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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24781177">Five Times The Master Wanted To Say 'I Love You' (and one time he did)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThoscheiTrash/pseuds/ThoscheiTrash'>ThoscheiTrash</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Doctor Who (2005)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Episode: s07e04 The Power of Three, Flirting, M/M, Pining, Texting, and then goes to become O, the master finds out the truth, then chapter two takes place during</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 09:08:11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,031</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24781177</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThoscheiTrash/pseuds/ThoscheiTrash</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"Goodnight." The Master sent, fingers tapping against his phone. ‘ I love you.’ He wanted to say. </p><p>At least he was getting to spend extra time with the Doctor - he was getting the experience of being one of his human friends. It was… odd, in a way, because it felt almost identical to how their old friendship had once felt - there was no imbalance of power. The Doctor was so much /more/ than these humans (in more ways than he even knew) but he treated them as he would treat anyone - as he had treated the Master. He treated them as equals.  He wasn’t entirely sure that he liked that realisation. Despite the enjoyment he was getting from texting the Doctor, he almost wished he’d never given him his number in the first place - what had he been thinking, doing that?</p><p>**************<br/>From the moment he met the Doctor at the academy, the Master loved him. But he didn't truly realise this until the lovely friendship he and Missy had built came to an abrupt end, and she was forced to take on a new face. Now, he knows, and he wishes he could make himself say it.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Eleventh Doctor/The Master (Dhawan), The Doctor/The Master (Doctor Who), Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>58</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. The First Time: Disguises Are A Prison</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>The Master finds out about the Timeless Child, and he becomes O.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>When the Master discovered the truth, it was almost directly after his regeneration. He’d barely figured out what this new body was like - he’d barely gotten over everything he’d had to go through as Missy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Honestly, he thought the Doctor was dead. </span>
  <em>
    <span>He died on the colony ship</span>
  </em>
  <span>, the Master told himself. </span>
  <em>
    <span>I tried to save him, but I couldn’t.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe that was why he had returned to the planet that he had always hated so much - because although the Doctor hadn’t spent much of his life there, it was their </span>
  <em>
    <span>home. </span>
  </em>
  <span>It was the place that they had grown up, and they had fond memories of laying under an orange sky and talking for hours on end. As short as their time on Gallifrey was, it would always be </span>
  <em>
    <span>special</span>
  </em>
  <span> to them both, because it was the closest the two of them had ever been. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>When he searched for the Doctor in the Matrix database, he’d been hoping to relive those memories. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Maybe,</span>
  </em>
  <span> he thought, </span>
  <em>
    <span>I can pretend he’s here with me. I can watch the days and the nights that we spent together, and it’ll be like he never left.</span>
  </em>
  
</p><p>
  <span>But it didn’t make him happy. First, it made him cry. (Oh, how he cried.) </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then… he saw something that he wasn’t supposed to. The Master discovered the truth, and he didn’t know what to do. (Though another tear slid down his cheek at the thought of </span>
  <em>
    <span>his</span>
  </em>
  <span> Doctor being killed over and over just to satisfy the curiosity of a scientist.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Doctor was his friend, and they had </span>
  <em>
    <span>hurt</span>
  </em>
  <span> him. Worse than that, they’d exploited his pain. They’d stolen his very </span>
  <em>
    <span>essence</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and put it into their children. It wasn’t fair.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Why should they get to steal his </span>
  <em>
    <span>life</span>
  </em>
  <span> like that? Without him, the Master thought, their race would be </span>
  <em>
    <span>nothing</span>
  </em>
  <span>. If the Time Lords had shorter lifespans (the three hundred years that each regeneration naturally lasted them) then </span>
  <em>
    <span>so </span>
  </em>
  <span>many of them would be dead now. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Doctor had unwillingly given them life, and the Master decided that it was time that gift was taken back - for the sake of the child that had been </span>
  <em>
    <span>tortured</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was only when his ship was hurtling through the Vortex, the ashes of Gallifrey somewhere behind him, that he realised what this meant. </span>
  <em>
    <span>The Doctor was alive. </span>
  </em>
  <span>He was immortal, he always </span>
  <em>
    <span>had </span>
  </em>
  <span>been immortal (it made the Master feel a little better about his many failed attempts to kill him) and it meant that </span>
  <em>
    <span>somewhere</span>
  </em>
  <span> out there, he was alive, travelling in his little blue box and saving the lives of people who probably didn’t deserve it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As the Master ran around the console of his TARDIS, pulling levers and pressing buttons, all he could think about was how </span>
  <em>
    <span>desperate </span>
  </em>
  <span>he was to see the Doctor again. Everyone who knew the Doctor knew how much he loved Earth, so that was where the Master decided to go. There had to be </span>
  <em>
    <span>some</span>
  </em>
  <span> sort of organisation on that planet that he could use to get close to the Doctor - there had to be </span>
  <em>
    <span>some</span>
  </em>
  <span> way to see him again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And when he finally did, after a few months of pretending to enjoy being a simple little human who worked at a desk and jumped at every vaguely alien-sounding case, he didn’t quite know what to say.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Doctor was younger than he’d expected - </span>
  <em>
    <span>too</span>
  </em>
  <span> young, and it meant that he couldn’t just tell him the truth straight away. No, this version of the Doctor still had so much to experience - he thought that the Master was dead, and if he found out that he </span>
  <em>
    <span>wasn’t</span>
  </em>
  <span>… well, it would ruin the plans that Missy had for him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>So, despite how desperate he was to tell the Doctor </span>
  <em>
    <span>everything</span>
  </em>
  <span>, he couldn’t. He introduced himself as O, the identity that all the humans knew him by, and he made sure to say exactly the right things to make the Doctor like him. He portrayed himself as humble, but still managed to show off how smart he was. He told the Doctor that he’d been researching him, certain that aliens truly did walk among them, and the Doctor rewarded him with stories about everything he’d seen recently. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>O flirted with the Doctor in a way that the Master had never truly been able to - not since they had left Gallifrey, at least. And, much to the Master’s happiness and dismay (because although he was happy to flirt, he hated knowing that his old friend could ever like a human) the other man was receptive. He even flirted back, once or twice.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When they’d saved the day and the Doctor had to leave, O straightened his bowtie, gave him a dazzling smile, and handed him a piece of paper.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What’s this?” The Doctor asked, and O pulled out the phone that he’d stolen from someone a little while ago. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s my number. So that the next time you need help with an alien invasion, you can call me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Almost instantly, he regretted it. </span>
  <em>
    <span>What had he been thinking?</span>
  </em>
  <span> He should’ve just waited for another version of the Doctor - a </span>
  <em>
    <span>future</span>
  </em>
  <span> version, one that he could actually interact with without using a disguise - to appear on Earth, and left it at that. But it had been so </span>
  <em>
    <span>tempting</span>
  </em>
  <span>, to just let himself have a way of talking to the Doctor again. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>With a sigh, he threw his phone into the top drawer of his desk, and watched as the Doctor left. As much as the Master had always loved disguises… it felt like a prison, this time. All he wanted to do was hug his best enemy, tell him that he’d survived, and then tell him everything he’d learned, but he </span>
  <em>
    <span>couldn’t.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe wanting to share was a selfish desire - after all, the Doctor was happy. Telling him the truth would only hurt him, and that was the </span>
  <em>
    <span>last</span>
  </em>
  <span> thing he wanted to do. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But in that moment, it didn’t matter. As he watched the Doctor walk away, after putting so much effort into getting revenge for the pain inflicted on him, he knew one thing for certain.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He had never been able to admit it - and now he </span>
  <em>
    <span>couldn’t</span>
  </em>
  <span> admit it, because of his little disguise - but that didn’t make it any less true. Running a hand through his hair, the Master sighed, wishing that everything between them wasn’t always so </span>
  <em>
    <span>complicated</span>
  </em>
  <span>; that he could just say the three little words that were threatening to force their way out of his throat. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But wishing never made anything happen, so there he sat, those words repeating on a loop in his head, </span>
  <em>
    <span>taunting</span>
  </em>
  <span> him with the knowledge that he couldn’t say them.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Doctor,</span>
  </em>
  <span> he thought, mouthing the words as they crossed his mind, </span>
  <em>
    <span>I love you.</span>
  </em>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. The Second Time: Late Night Conversations</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Texting, Santa Claus, and suspenders.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The Master was sitting in his TARDIS, doing some repairs, when the Doctor’s message came through. </span>
</p><p>
  <b>
    <em>Does that offer about helping with any future invasions still apply?</em>
  </b>
</p><p>
  <span>Smirking to himself, the Master continued with his repairs for a few minutes before starting to type out his reply. (After all, he didn’t want O to seem desperate.)</span>
</p><p>
  <b>
    <em>Thought you’d never ask.</em>
  </b>
  <span> Okay, maybe that sounded a </span>
  <em>
    <span>bit </span>
  </em>
  <span>desperate, but it was meant to set a flirtatious tone to their conversation. </span>
  <b>
    <em>Is this about the cubes?</em>
  </b>
</p><p>
  <b>
    <em>Yeah. Does MI6 have any idea where they came from?</em>
  </b>
</p><p>
  <span>The Master was slightly offended by the Doctor only using him to access MI6 information, but he tried not to show it. No, instead he’d simply show his old friend that he was </span>
  <em>
    <span>better </span>
  </em>
  <span>than them. </span>
</p><p>
  <b>
    <em>Nope. </em>
  </b>
  <span>A pause. </span>
  <b>
    <em>Well, some of them think it’s another country, and that they’re all tiny bombs. But they’re all over the world - that doesn’t make sense. </em>
  </b>
</p><p>
  <b>
    <em>Well, what do </em>
  </b>
  <b>you</b>
  <b>
    <em> think?</em>
  </b>
</p><p>
  <span>The Master took a moment to think it over. If this was his plan, what would he do? What would be the best way to cause as much damage as possible? </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It would probably be some sort of mass-murder device - maybe they </span>
  <em>
    <span>were</span>
  </em>
  <span> tiny bombs, or something similar - but he couldn’t say that. No, he was being O, and O was an analyst, someone who was incredibly smart, believed in aliens, and worked with </span>
  <em>
    <span>technology</span>
  </em>
  <span>, so he had to give an answer related to that.</span>
</p><p>
  <b>
    <em>It’s aliens, right? So maybe they don’t know anything about Earth, and the cubes are scanning us. People are taking them indoors, leaving them around their houses, and the governments must be doing tests on them. That means that they’ll be close to computers, and they can get access to all sorts of information.</em>
  </b>
</p><p>
  <span>There was a pause, and he supposed the Doctor was thinking it over. </span>
  <b>
    <em>UNIT is studying them at the minute. They’re exposing them all to the elements, and it isn’t doing anything. I’m not quite sure what that means.</em>
  </b>
</p><p>
  <b>
    <em>It means that whoever did this was prepared. </em>
  </b>
  <span>Although the Master didn’t particularly care about whether or not Earth was invaded, he wanted to keep the conversation going. Maybe that was a foolish desire, but he missed his friend and was glad to be talking to him, even if it </span>
  <em>
    <span>was</span>
  </em>
  <span> through an alias. </span>
  <b>
    <em>Are they giving off any signals? Radiation, maybe? </em>
  </b>
</p><p>
  <b>
    <em>Nope. I looked for that, already. </em>
  </b>
</p><p>
  <b>
    <em>Well, let me know if there’s anything I can do. </em>
  </b>
  <span>The Master sighed to himself, then added:</span>
  <b>
    <em> I’ve not been stupid enough to take any into my house, at least. I wish other people would listen to me when I told them not to.</em>
  </b>
</p><p>
  <b>
    <em>That’s probably a good idea. </em>
  </b>
  <span>If only the rest of the world were doing that, the Doctor thought. If only they were all as clever as O.</span>
  <b>
    <em> Let me know if MI6 figures anything out.</em>
  </b>
</p><p>
  <b>
    <em>Of course. </em>
  </b>
  <span>Humans were idiots, though, so the Master doubted that they’d </span>
  <em>
    <span>actually</span>
  </em>
  <span> come up with anything that would help him. From what he’d told Missy, it sounded like the humans often didn’t believe the Doctor’s warnings of dangerous aliens and impending doom, and he was left to deal with it all by himself. (He’d added that to the list of reasons he hated humans.) </span>
  <b>
    <em>They might not be much help, though. The ones who aren’t blaming Russia think it’s a publicity stunt. </em>
  </b>
  <span>Idiots.</span>
</p><p>
  <b>
    <em>Well, you never know.</em>
  </b>
  <span> Oh, the Doctor had never liked to call his human’s ideas stupid, even though the Master had never had that problem. It was infuriating, honestly, because that idea </span>
  <em>
    <span>was</span>
  </em>
  <span> stupid. If it were a publicity stunt, someone would’ve taken the credit, or the cubes would’ve had a brand name on them. He hadn’t spent much time on this planet, but even the Master knew </span>
  <em>
    <span>that.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>During that year, the Doctor and O exchanged a lot of messages - they talked about the cubes, mostly, but sometimes the topic of conversation wandered. The Doctor updated him on his life, and told him all about Amy and Rory. He even mentioned a few of his other friends, to - ones that he had lost along the way. O was sympathetic, and helped him grieve. But the Master was jealous, and wished he’d talk about something else.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was nice, the Master found, to have the Doctor trapped on Earth for so long. He’d never been good at sitting still, and although the Master’s own patience was wearing thin, he was enjoying watching his old friend get more and more irritated when the cubes didn’t make a move for months on end. And, more than anything, he loved that when the Doctor was bored, he would message him constantly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Master </span>
  <em>
    <span>never</span>
  </em>
  <span> had to make the first move - he’d get random texts all through the day, and all through the night. The Doctor barely even seemed to notice that O wasn’t sleeping as much as a human was meant to. (Or maybe he just assumed that his texts always woke O up.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But whatever the Doctor thought, it didn’t matter, not to the Master. He was just glad to finally, </span>
  <em>
    <span>finally, </span>
  </em>
  <span>have his attention. They spoke almost every day, though they never met in person. It was mostly his own fault - the Master wasn’t sure how much of a good idea it was to meet up - his disguise might slip. He was </span>
  <em>
    <span>good </span>
  </em>
  <span>at pretending, but it was harder in front of the Doctor, especially since there was the chance that he’d recognise the beating of two hearts. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He couldn’t risk it, not when the Doctor was so young. He had to wait for him to find out the Master was alive, first; as soon as he’d met Missy, it would be okay. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Then</span>
  </em>
  <span> he could risk it. (Well, maybe not as </span>
  <em>
    <span>soon</span>
  </em>
  <span> as he’d met Missy, but he wouldn’t have to wait </span>
  <em>
    <span>long</span>
  </em>
  <span>, he hoped.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But as much as the Master told himself that he hated having his life revolve around the Doctor, he was never far from O’s phone, and never took more than a few minutes to tap out a response to one of the Doctor’s texts.</span>
</p><p><b><em>They’re counting down.</em></b> <span>The Master texted him, when the cubes seemed to suddenly activate. </span><b><em>What does that mean?</em></b></p><p>
  <b>
    <em>Not sure. Dealing with it now.</em>
  </b>
  <span> There was a long pause, and the Master thought that this was all he’d get out of him, today. Whenever he was dealing with something big, the Doctor went silent, as much as O insisted that he wanted updates, so that he wouldn’t have to worry. But this time, another text came through. </span>
  <b>
    <em>Be careful. I’d stay away from them, if I were you.</em>
  </b>
</p><p>
  <span>It may have been a simple message; a simple warning, but it meant the Doctor </span>
  <em>
    <span>cared</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and that was enough to make the Master regret giving out his phone number </span>
  <em>
    <span>less</span>
  </em>
  <span> than he previously had.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After that, things started moving faster. Everyone was talking about the cubes, waiting to see what would happen, and then… well, before the end of the day, they were gone.</span>
</p><p>
  <b>
    <em>You saved Earth.</em>
  </b>
  <span> The Master said, before quickly adding; </span>
  <b>
    <em>Again.</em>
  </b>
</p><p>
  <b>
    <em>Well, I couldn’t let you all die, could I? Besides, I’d miss my friends. </em>
  </b>
  <span>There was a lot more than that involved in the reasons that he kept saving Earth, but neither of them commented on it. O didn’t know that he’d killed them all on Gallifrey, anyway, so he wouldn’t have been able to point out that the Doctor was saving other planets because he regretted so deeply that he was unable to save his own.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And he </span>
  <em>
    <span>especially</span>
  </em>
  <span> couldn’t mention that since Earth was like a second home to the Doctor - it was the place he’d spent most of his life, where he came to find solace, and the friends he made were always people from this planet - he </span>
  <em>
    <span>had</span>
  </em>
  <span> to protect it. If he lost the only other place he’d started to consider a home… well, it might just break him.</span>
</p><p>
  <b>
    <em>Well, I’m very grateful. I’ve never been more happy to be alive.</em>
  </b>
</p><p>
  <b>
    <em>What about the time you nearly drowned? </em>
  </b>
  <span>The Master could </span>
  <em>
    <span>remember</span>
  </em>
  <span> that little detail - it was something he’d mentioned the first time he met C - it was a little detail he’d made a part of O’s backstory, and he had </span>
  <em>
    <span>no</span>
  </em>
  <span> idea why the Doctor knew it.</span>
</p><p>
  <b>
    <em>How do you know about that?</em>
  </b>
</p><p>
  <b>
    <em>I read your file. </em>
  </b>
  <span>Wow, he really was shameless. </span>
  <b>
    <em>Sorry. I needed to know who I was working with.</em>
  </b>
</p><p>
  <b>
    <em>Hey, I’d have done the same.</em>
  </b>
  <span> If he didn’t already know him inside out, that was. (Some might say the Master had an unfair advantage, but he would disagree. And then he’d shoot them.)</span>
</p><p>
  <b>
    <em>I’m not sure what to do, now.</em>
  </b>
  <span> The Doctor didn’t just mean with this </span>
  <em>
    <span>conversation</span>
  </em>
  <span>, with </span>
  <em>
    <span>him</span>
  </em>
  <span>, that much was clear. No, it was an </span>
  <em>
    <span>honest</span>
  </em>
  <span> statement; one that would have been whispered, had it been spoken aloud. </span>
</p><p>
  <b>
    <em>Haven’t you got planets to visit?</em>
  </b>
</p><p>
  <b>
    <em>Yes. But… it’s been a year. I’ve been on Earth for a </em>
  </b>
  <b>year</b>
  <b>
    <em>, it feels weird to go back to my old life like nothing happened.</em>
  </b>
</p><p>
  <span>The Master wasn’t quite sure what to say to that. If he were speaking to </span>
  <em>
    <span>his</span>
  </em>
  <span> Doctor, in the present day, he might convince him </span>
  <em>
    <span>not</span>
  </em>
  <span> to go back to his old life, but… he didn’t really have a choice, here.</span>
</p><p>
  <b>
    <em>You’ll get used to it sooner than you think. Trust me, it’s easy to slip back into your old routines. </em>
  </b>
  <span>But he wasn’t entirely sure that he </span>
  <em>
    <span>wanted</span>
  </em>
  <span> to go back to his old routines - they didn’t have him talking to O every day, and he’d become rather fond of that part of his day.</span>
</p><p>
  <b>
    <em>Maybe. I might just sit on the TARDIS for a little while, though.</em>
  </b>
</p><p>
  <b>
    <em>Good idea. Might help ease yourself back into it.</em>
  </b>
</p><p>
  <span>The Doctor’s next text took the Master entirely by surprise, even if he didn’t want to admit it.</span>
</p><p>
  <b>
    <em>You could come too, if you like.</em>
  </b>
</p><p>
  <span>Oh, he wanted to. He wanted to, more than </span>
  <em>
    <span>anything</span>
  </em>
  <span>, but he forced himself to remember the risks. He </span>
  <em>
    <span>couldn’t.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <b>
    <em>Bit busy at the minute. I can text, but I’m working. Pretending to listen to people who are coming up with stupid explanations for everything that happened with the cubes.</em>
  </b>
</p><p>
  <span>There was a pause before the Doctor’s next message came through, and the Master found himself actually feeling </span>
  <em>
    <span>bad</span>
  </em>
  <span> for not giving him what he wanted and going with him. </span>
</p><p>
  <b>
    <em>Next time, then.</em>
  </b>
</p><p>
  <b>
    <em>Yeah, next time.</em>
  </b>
  <span> Another pause. </span>
  <b>
    <em>Do you think that humans will </em>
  </b>
  <b>ever </b>
  <b>
    <em>stop denying that aliens exist?</em>
  </b>
</p><p>
  <b>
    <em>I think they’ll get there in the end. </em>
  </b>
  <b>You </b>
  <b>
    <em>never denied it, after all, so others will follow suit eventually.</em>
  </b>
</p><p>
  <b>
    <em>I hope so. I’m sick of everyone at MI6 thinking I’m nuts for believing in a time travelling alien who’s saved our planet more times than I know. I might as well be telling them I believe in Santa Claus. </em>
  </b>
  <span>It was funny, making out that the Doctor’s existence was so… improbable. To him, he’d always just been </span>
  <em>
    <span>the Doctor, </span>
  </em>
  <span>his childhood friend who never failed to get picked on by other students. It was odd to see him be looked up to by so many, and for him to be </span>
  <em>
    <span>too good to be true </span>
  </em>
  <span>for all the others.</span>
</p><p>
  <b>
    <em>Are you suggesting that I’m </em>
  </b>
  <b>not </b>
  <b>
    <em>Santa Claus?</em>
  </b>
</p><p>
  <b>
    <em>...You’re not, are you?</em>
  </b>
</p><p>
  <b>
    <em>His sack must be bigger on the inside to fit in all those presents, and there’d be no way he could visit all the children in one night if he didn’t have access to time travel….</em>
  </b>
</p><p>
  <span>The Doctor was </span>
  <em>
    <span>teasing</span>
  </em>
  <span> him, he knew that - the man may love humans, but even </span>
  <em>
    <span>he </span>
  </em>
  <span>wouldn’t want to put in that much effort to please them. He wouldn’t have the attention span for it, anyway.</span>
</p><p>
  <b>
    <em>Stop teasing. </em>
  </b>
</p><p>
  <b>
    <em>What, you don’t believe me?</em>
  </b>
</p><p>
  <span>Rather than giving him a straight answer, the Master wrote; </span>
  <b>
    <em>You don’t have white beard. </em>
  </b>
  <span>As if </span>
  <em>
    <span>that </span>
  </em>
  <span>were the only problem with his story.</span>
</p><p>
  <b>
    <em>Not anymore. </em>
  </b>
  <span>He was </span>
  <em>
    <span>really</span>
  </em>
  <span> going to stick with this, wasn’t he?</span>
</p><p>
  <b>
    <em>You don’t wear red.</em>
  </b>
</p><p>
  <b>
    <em>You’ve only met me once. </em>
  </b>
  <span>That was a good point. He’d gotten a little carried away, there. But it was a good reminder that he had to focus on maintaining his disguise at all times, even when the two of them were just having some harmless fun. He couldn’t risk damaging the timelines over some light teasing about a human myth. </span>
  <b>
    <em>I could be wearing red right now. </em>
  </b>
</p><p>
  <b>
    <em>But you’re not, are you?</em>
  </b>
</p><p>
  <b>
    <em>Well, I’m not wearing a </em>
  </b>
  <b>lot </b>
  <b>
    <em>of red. </em>
  </b>
</p><p>
  <span>The Doctor liked to stick to one outfit per regeneration, just like he did. They always seemed to get overly attached to their clothing - once they’d found their specific </span>
  <em>
    <span>style</span>
  </em>
  <span>, they never wanted to change it. </span>
</p><p>
  <b>
    <em>Is it the suspenders?</em>
  </b>
</p><p>
  <b>
    <em>...Yes. </em>
  </b>
</p><p>
  <span>The Master grinned to himself, and leaned back in his chair as he let himself imagine how he could </span>
  <em>
    <span>ruin</span>
  </em>
  <span> this Doctor - how he could make that sweet, fumbling innocence go away. It would be so easy to steer the conversation towards topics that were more… pleasurable. They were talking about his suspenders, after all; he could make a simple comment about how badly he wanted to slip his fingers under them and push them off his shoulders. Or he could ask him to send a picture, and he could make a dirty comment. The Doctor had always loved humans so much that he probably wouldn’t give much thought to sending a few dirty messages to (someone he thought was) one. The Master’s tongue darted out to lick his lips at the thought.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Oh, he could have the Doctor begging for his touch from </span>
  <em>
    <span>wherever </span>
  </em>
  <span>it was his TARDIS was parked - maybe he could even convince him to pay him a visit. But as much as he loved the thought, it was a bad idea. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Master was a lot of things - he had </span>
  <em>
    <span>done</span>
  </em>
  <span> a lot of things - but when he finally used this body to do </span>
  <em>
    <span>that</span>
  </em>
  <span> with the Doctor, it would be when the other man knew who he really was. It would be when he could hear the word </span>
  <em>
    <span>Master</span>
  </em>
  <span> leave his lips with a groan, and when he could bend him over the console of his TARDIS (which would no longer be disguised as a house) and give them both the best experience of their lives. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Master hadn’t realised how long of a pause his less than innocent thoughts had made him have, so when the Doctor asked if he was still there, he quickly sent back a thumbs up emoji. </span>
</p><p>
  <b>
    <em>Sorry, got distracted. </em>
  </b>
  <span>‘Thinking about you’, he wanted to add. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>If </span>
  <em>
    <span>only </span>
  </em>
  <span>he didn’t have to pretend - if </span>
  <em>
    <span>only</span>
  </em>
  <span> he could be himself, and just tell the truth. (And it was almost funny that the </span>
  <em>
    <span>Master</span>
  </em>
  <span> of all people wanted to tell the </span>
  <em>
    <span>truth.) </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <b>
    <em>I think I’ve finished my work for the night, now. I’m going to go home and then fall asleep. It’s a tiring job, this. </em>
  </b>
</p><p>
  <b>
    <em>Hopefully some sleep will make you feel a bit more energised, then. Goodnight.</em>
  </b>
</p><p>
  <b>
    <em>Goodnight. </em>
  </b>
  <span>The Master sent. ‘</span>
  <em>
    <span>I love you.’ </span>
  </em>
  <span>He wanted to say. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>At least he was getting to spend extra time with the Doctor - he was getting the experience of being one of his human friends. It was… odd, in a way, because it felt almost identical to how their </span>
  <em>
    <span>old </span>
  </em>
  <span>friendship had once felt - there was no imbalance of power. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Doctor was so much more than these humans (in more ways than he even knew) but he treated them as he would treat anyone - as he had treated the Master. He treated them as </span>
  <em>
    <span>equals. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>He wasn’t entirely sure that he </span>
  <em>
    <span>liked </span>
  </em>
  <span>that realisation. Despite the enjoyment he was getting from texting the Doctor, he almost wished he’d never given him his number in the first place - what had he been </span>
  <em>
    <span>thinking, </span>
  </em>
  <span>doing that?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It had been a bad idea - this hadn’t been what he’d wanted. He just wanted to see the Doctor directly after the colony ship, but now he’d implanted himself in his life, and he’d have to wait </span>
  <em>
    <span>years</span>
  </em>
  <span> to see </span>
  <em>
    <span>his </span>
  </em>
  <span>Doctor again. If only he could stop pretending to be O, but he could distinctly remember Missy telling him off for texting someone while she was talking to him… and since the Doctor didn’t give many people his phone number, it </span>
  <em>
    <span>had</span>
  </em>
  <span> to have been him. So that, of course, meant that he couldn’t stop being O without altering his own timeline.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Still, it didn’t mean he had to keep working among the humans every day at MI6, pretending to be someone he wasn’t - an end to </span>
  <em>
    <span>that</span>
  </em>
  <span> part of his life would be quite welcome. The Master </span>
  <em>
    <span>really</span>
  </em>
  <span> wasn’t the sort of person who enjoyed working in an office.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But knowing that the Doctor might check in with MI6 again, he couldn’t go for the dramatic, </span>
  <em>
    <span>murderous</span>
  </em>
  <span> exit he was so </span>
  <em>
    <span>desperate </span>
  </em>
  <span>for, and instead needed something simple. </span>
  <em>
    <span>To get fired, perhaps.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Should be easy enough, the Master thought. After all, they’ve made it clear that they don’t believe in aliens; might as well play that side of himself </span>
  <em>
    <span>up</span>
  </em>
  <span> a little bit, make them think he believed a little </span>
  <em>
    <span>more</span>
  </em>
  <span> than what was normal. (Though humans were idiots for thinking that the ‘normal’ level of belief was simply </span>
  <em>
    <span>dis</span>
  </em>
  <span>belief.)</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I've never quite managed to get eleven's voice... right. The things he says sounds more like they're coming from thirteen, I think. Sorry about that. I think I wrote O okay, though.<br/>Let me know what you think! And if anyone actually read this, let mw know. I had fun writing this (even if it took a little while) and I'd like to write more, if people are interested.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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